The present invention relates in general to manufacture of semiconductor devices, and in particular to various techniques to manufacture semiconductor devices having significantly larger size and circuit density.
With advances in design and manufacture of semiconductor devices, it has become possible to integrate increasingly larger amounts of circuitry on a single die. Today the size of a die can easily approach the limits of existing manufacturing equipment. Semiconductor manufacturing equipment that are designed to process silicon wafers divide each wafer into various reticles that are processed simultaneously. For a relatively smaller die, a reticle may contain multiple dies. However, it is now possible to design and integrated enough circuitry on a die that may be as large or even larger than a reticle. There is therefore a need for solutions to the problems posed by die sizes reaching the reticle limitations of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.